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Article Index
A.A. and the Five C's: A Root from Soul Surgery
The Analysis and Study
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What's All This about?

I remember the first time I heard the expression "soul surgery" in an A.A. meeting, I thought the gal who mentioned it was a little daft. "Soul Surgery!" What in the heck was that about? Then I saw it mentioned in DR. BOB and the Good Oldtimers. Then I read the Master's Thesis by A.A.'s and my friend T. Willard Hunter and saw he spoke of Frank Buchman as the "old soul surgeon." Finally, as I dived into Oxford Group research. I saw the surgery come together piece by piece: (1) Sin was the problem. (2) Sin was anything that blocked you from God or other people. (3) To do God's will, you had to cut out sin. (4) The "art" of Soul Surgery, as Buchman called it, was to cut sin out of your life by an incisive "surgical" process that began with surrender of your life to God's care and direction and then utilizing the power of God to cut out sin. (5) You did that, said Buchman and his colleagues, by the Five C's–Confidence, Confession, Conviction, Conversion, and Conservation [later called "Continuance"]. (6) The process also involved making amends or restitution, seeking God's guidance, continuing with a daily surrender, passing it on, and living by the spiritual principles of the Bible.

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It didn't take me long to see that these were the heart ideas of our Twelve Steps as Bill heard the instructions from Ebby Thacher, Rowland Hazard, Shep Cornell, Victor Kitchen, the Twitchells, Rev. and Mrs. W. Irving Harris, Sam Shoemaker, and Bill's other Oxford Group friends of the mid-1930's.

Your began, of course, with the unmanageable life [Oh, God, manage me because I cannot manage myself]. There was the willingness to believe and take action [John 7:17–Shoemaker's favorite verse]. Then you stood at the Turning Point [a William James expression]. Then you commenced the real surrender and soul surgery process that became our middle steps: (1) A decision. (2) Making the moral test [writing down the Four Absolutes and seeing how your life measured up]. (3) Confessing [letting God and another believer in on your discoveries]. [4] Becoming "Convicted" [an expression Lois Wilson and Anne Smith both used in their journals, and which meant being convinced that you had screwed up in God's eyes and were willing to "hate and forsake" your sins. [5] Conversion [the process prescribed by Jung, detailed by Shoemaker, used by Rowland Hazard and Ebby and Bill–which meant accepting Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior and thereby being transformed into a new person–"Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new." You will see this verse from 2 Corinthians 5:17 in Oxford Group, Shoemaker, early A.A., Clarence Snyder, and other writings. This was the "changed life" that arose from being born again of the spirit of God. [6] Continuance [the process of surrendering your sins daily, taking a daily inventory, making a daily confession, becoming convicted of newly arising or returning shortcomings, relying on the power of God to change, and then getting back into fellowship with God through Bible study, prayer, guidance, "passing it on" as Buchman called it, and living by the principles of 1 Corinthians 13 and the Four Absolutes, among others.

The Documentation

How do you verify all this? You can study Harold Begbie's Life Changers where Buchman is described as the "soul surgeon" and Begbie narrates the origin of the Five C's. You can read Soul Surgery, the important book published by H. A. Walter in 1919 in collaboration with Professor Henry Wright and Dr. Frank Buchman. There Walter explains each of the C's in detail. You can read about them in Sam Shoemaker's first significant title–Realizing Religion. And you can see that these techniques did not come out of a vacuum cleaner. Each was based on Biblical authority. Each was carefully explained. And each was later specifically defined by Sam Shoemaker's learned assistant Dr. Olive Jones in her book Inspired Children. As with the Four Absolutes, if you want the standards for truth that Shoemaker, Buchman, Dr. Bob and Bill used in the beginning, you turn to the Bible roots themselves. For Confidence, the many verses on witnessing. For Confession, James 5:16. For Conviction, the verses about iniquities prevailing against you. For Conversion, Romans 10:9–confessing Jesus as Lord and believing God raised him from the dead. For Continuance, the host of materials on prayer, Bible study, seeking God's guidance, witnessing, fellowship, and living by the principles of the Sermon on the Mount, 1 Corinthians 13, and James–as well as others including the Ten Commandments.

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